How to Finally Kill Obamacare

Thanks to four justices of the Supreme Court, there is now a clear path to repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act next year, finally bringing Obamacare to an end.

But Republicans won’t accomplish this by waiting for the court or just voting to repeal the law one more time. The only way they can succeed is by crafting their own replacement — and they need to start right away.

Until the Supreme Court agreed to hearKing v. Burwell, which challenges the legality of the IRS rule allowing Obamacare subsidies in states that have not built their own insurance exchanges, the conventional wisdom was that Congress would pass a symbolic bill to repeal Obamacare that everyone knows would be vetoed by the president. Then they’d move on. Obamacare would survive at least until 2017.

Whether the Court rules for King or for Burwell, the fact that only 13 states have set up Obamacare exchanges is evidence of the remarkable and continuing opposition to President Obama's signature legislation.